The Real Weapon of Mass Destruction

Believe it or not, there was time when the family sat around at night and talked to each other. Sometimes they would read or work on homework, but they would spend time together. Unfortunately those times seem to have slipped by the average U.S. citizen.

Nowadays, in this world of mass communication, video games, on-demand cable and television there is a growing gap in our ability to imagine and to fully understand what is going on around us. Can the average adult tell the difference between a fact and a feeling?

Often times not.

It has become very easy for television networks and the like to manipulate viewers with its simple but effective use of suspension of morality for the sake of entertainment . A closer examination shows that this is not a current phenomenon. It goes back to the 70’s and the ‘free-me movement.’

One situational comedy involved a man living with two women. They were roommates. This was not felt as a problem, as it was innocent, because the man had his own room to sleep in. And in order to remain as a roommate the man had to ‘claim’ he was ‘gay ‘ which made for many humorous moments. This was not felt as a problem because he really wasn’t ‘gay.’

However the fact is that this man had to continually lie ‘in order to stay as a roommate in this apartment. The network that aired this show managed to cloud the most basic moral issues by burying it under the premise that these three people were all living in the same apartment and the man was supposed to be homosexual and selling the humorous side of the situation.

Forward more than three decades later and you will see that the networks are still up to their old tricks. Now we have reality TV. That in of itself is an oxymoron. There is nothing real on the television as everything subjected to pre-recording and editing. Many times there is a sense of frustration at the ending of a cop and lawyer program where it was felt the bad guy did not get what they deserved .

Not even the news can be counted on to give its audience the real facts. There was the case of a truck being exploded for the camera for a news report a few years ago. News magazines continually have to apologize for misstating facts. The journalist will usually conclude that he or she felt it was appropriate to use the fact. The talking heads on the major news networks will slip in their feelings about a situation or a person and consider it journalist integrity.

The idea that networks confuse the viewing public with feeling verses fact in its news departments comes from two fronts. The first is that there has been no-one to challenge the status-quo for so long that business as usual is exactly that and they have come to believe nobody is wise enough to realize it or question it.

The second is that facts don’t sell commercial products, feelings do. Ratings mean money. And that is the name of the game.

Here’ s a simple test to see if you confuse fact with feeling: A man leaves home jogging . Re jogs for a little while, and then turns left. Re jogs for a little while, and then turns left again. He jogs for a little while then turns left once again. As he approaches home he can see two masked men.

How does the story make you feel? What are the facts? Have you been manipulated in anyway?

There are only two answers to the story. Either the man went for a jog and is about to be attacked upon returning home or he just hit a home run in a baseball game and is seeing the home plate umpire and catcher.

The real weapon of mass destruction may not be found hidden in Iraq, Syria, Iran, North Korea, France, Germany or any other country that harbors terrorism. It just might be sitting in you living room. The fact is that you must feel its danger for yourself then draw you own conclusion.